


style

by ScatteredWords



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3815152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScatteredWords/pseuds/ScatteredWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And when we go crashing down, we come back every time. We never go out of style." Danny Lawrence thinks she's some kind of masochist. Mircalla/Arcillma/Millarca/Carmilla Karnstein knows she is. Vampire!Danny AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by the Taylor Swift song, Style. Content also inspired by the Taylor Swift song, Style. And a Danny GIFset I saw while listening to said song. Previously posted on my Tumblr.

Nobody expected Silas University to re-open after the war. Alumni of the school (originally the Anneke Silas College For Young Ladies) bemoaned the loss of their alma mater. Or held triumphant parties that raged through the night and into the next morning. It was about a 50-50 split. Joyous or despairing, however, they all agreed that Silas had closed its arguably sentient gates for good.

What they didn’t know- what almost no-one knew –was that those gates had always remained open.

Students had studied in the shadowy library, danced in the student union ballroom, laughed at quad mixers, and generally gone about their lives oblivious to the carnage around them. Bombs never seemed to find the university’s apparently tranquil valley. Troops never seemed to march near enough to be seen or heard. And no-one ever seemed to be able to leave campus. It was only at the end of 1947, when parents arrived looking haunted and embraced children they’d given up for dead, that the second Great War came to Silas.

Chaos erupted. There were threats of lawsuits or even complaints to the newly-formed UN. Families drove away from campus swearing they’d never look back. For a while, it seemed like they’d keep their promises.

And then, in the summer of 1956, almost a year after Austria regained full independence, freshmen arrived as if nothing had ever changed.

Some of them were from the same families who’d vowed revenge for the Great Quarantine (as it came to be called), whose parents developed a curious form of amnesia that caused them to forget their anger. And in some cases, their names. Others came from the nouveau riche, families who’d been swept up in postwar prosperity and liked the social cachet of a European education. But one way or another, they flooded into the school against all odds.

Danielle Lawrence was 19 that summer. She would be 19 until the end of the world.

————————————————————————

“Hey. Do I know you?”

A shadow fell across Danny’s book. She looked up and saw a fashion plate silhouetted against the sun. Or at least, that’s how it seemed; she’d never seen clothes as impeccably tailored as this girl’s outside the pages of Vogue. For a moment, her thoughts were thrown into chaos.

The girl raised her eyebrows. “What’s your name? I’ve seen you around campus. You’re a first-year, right?”

“Um.” Name? My name? Do I even have a name? “Danielle. Danielle Lawrence. Um.” She winced at the second ‘um.’ “Danny.”

“Mircalla,” the stranger said, deep red lips curling into a smile that made Danny’s heart race. “Mircalla Karnstein. Pleased to meet you, Danny.”

She extended a hand; Danny bit her lip and shook her head.

“I don’t want to stain your gloves,” she said, glancing from the spotless kid leather encasing Mircalla’s hand to her own ink-splattered fingers. Something in Mircalla’s face seemed to relax. She rolled her eyes, peeled off the cream-colored glove, and tossed it to the ground.

“To hell with my gloves,” she said, with a hint of annoyance. Stepping forward, she grasped Danny’s hand and shook it. Their eyes met.

“I just know we’re going to be friends.”

Danny couldn’t help believing her.

————————————————————————-

The first time they kissed, it was already too late. They just didn’t know yet.

From across campus, Danny spotted Mircalla standing outside the Bathory administration building. Her dark hair was plastered to her neck and back, her bra clearly visible through her blouse, as if she’d been standing there for hours in the April rain. Danny adjusted the angle of her umbrella and started across the grass. At her first squelching step, Mircalla raised her head and looked in Danny’s direction.

(Years later, she would realize there was no way Mircalla could have heard her footsteps so soon, and curse herself for not thinking more about that at the time.)

Her usually-impeccable makeup was running down her face. Judging by her reddened eyes, the black rivers of Maybelline weren’t entirely caused by the rain. As Danny approached, her pale cheeks flushed the lightest pink and she quickly turned away.

“Mircalla!” Danny called.

A sniff, badly suppressed, was the only response.

“Hey,” she said, coming to halt next to her friend. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” came the mumbled reply.

Danny sighed, shifting her books from one arm to the other. “Of course. You’re out here with puffy eyes getting soaked for your health.”

“I like the rain,” Mircalla said. She didn’t turn her head, but glanced sidelong at Danny through the curtain of her hair.

“You?” Danny snorted. “Calla, you don’t even like swimming. You’re practically a cat.”

A strangled laugh burst out of Mircalla. She whirled to face Danny and stepped towards her. “A cat? Am I a cat, Danny?” She flung her arms wide. “What kind of cat? A big, black cat? A cat that’s good and brings mice back to her mama?”

Danny grabbed her hands, but a slightly manic smile crept across Mircalla’s face. Words seemed to be pouring out of her, like a river breaking through a dam. “Am I a pretty cat? A quiet, neat little cat who kills all the mice? The pretty little mice? The…the…” She tried to take another step, overestimated the width of her pencil skirt, stumbled and fell. Still clutching her cold hands, Danny went down with her.

In six decades, she would never see the other girl this vulnerable again. Kneeling in the mud, gripping Danny’s hands so hard her already-pale knuckles went white, and shaking, Mircalla looked…broken. The rain poured down, soaking the curl out of Danny’s red hair (her umbrella forgotten on the grass nearby), but she barely noticed. Slipping her arms around Mircalla, she pulled her close. The lack of resistance to this unexpected intimacy frightened her; Mircalla hardly ever touched anyone, or let herself be touched. But now she clung to Danny as if the world was ending.

A half-remembered conversation came back to Danny. “Was today the Special Council meeting?”

Mircalla nodded against her shoulder. Danny’s jaw tightened. “Calla, why don’t you quit? You’re off for days after meetings. Whatever the dean does, it’s doing you no favors.”

A mumbled reply followed, of which Danny only caught, “my mother wants.” With a sigh, she sat back to look at Mircalla’s face.

“Someday, I’ll have to meet your mysterious mother and give her a piece of my mind,” she said. Mircalla stared at her for a moment. Then she leaned forward and kissed her.

It wasn’t tentative or cautious, like the kisses Danny’d shared with a few adventurous Summer Society sisters. It also wasn’t furtive. There in the middle of the North Quad, with god-knew-how-many students watching them, Mircalla Karnstein kissed her long and hard. Her kiss had an edge of urgency to it that made Danny hesitate before kissing her back. But then, she matched Mircalla’s fervor easily.

After what felt like forever, they broke apart.

“What was that?”

“Something I can’t have.”

Danny smiled. “Yes, you can.” And this time, she was the one who went in for the kiss.


	2. part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how this was supposed to be a twoshot? Well...I have more to say than I thought. So this is going to be more like a threeshot or fourshot. Oops?

In the summer of 1974, Danny Lawrence was 19. She would be 19 until the end of the world.

_“What the hell did you do to me?”_

_“Please. Please, I didn’t know-”_

An early September breeze blew through campus, reaching under the stone overhang and making the first fallen leaves dance around her shoes. She absently pulled her cardigan tighter, more out of habit than need. The cold couldn’t touch her now.

_“He took so much…you would have died. I couldn’t lose you.”_

Strands of coppery hair fell across her face; she pushed them back without thinking. The same hair, albeit looser and more layered than the careful curls of the 1950s. The same green eyes fixed on the setting sun. The same girl.

But not the same at all.

_“You already have.” She pushed Mircalla away and strode off across the lawn. It was the last time she ever saw her._

It was supposed to be the last time she ever saw her. After twenty years of aimless wandering across Europe, though, she’d returned to Silas out of habit. The last place where things had made sense.

She tried to tell herself it had nothing to do with seeing Mircalla’s face in a “class of 1978” photo spread, in that torn admissions catalogue she’d found in the streets of Prague. And maybe it didn’t. But one way or another, she’d ended up back in the one place she never wanted to see again. Standing in the covered walkway that skirted one side of the Summer Society house, watching 200-year-old oaks change color across the South Lawn.

If she reached down deep enough in her memory, she could call back the Danny Lawrence who really was 19, and feel echoes of that girl’s nervous excitement. She could make it feel new again.

Danny might have stood there, lost in thought, for hours- if someone hadn’t plowed into her from the left. Books thumped to the floor and she felt the heat of warm liquid through fabric as coffee soaked her shirt.

“Shit, shit.” The girl on the ground scrambled to pick up her belongings. “Hey, I’m really sorry,” she said, looking up at Danny- who stared back, speechless. It was like looking in a mirror. Make the girl a foot taller and take away her horn-rimmed glasses, and she could have been Danny’s twin. Orange-red hair, green eyes, and by the number of books she’d been carrying, too many classes by half.

After a few silent seconds, her face broke into an awkward smile. “So, um…I’m Jo. Well, Josephine technically, but everyone calls me Jo.”

Danny shook the proffered hand, trying to collect her thoughts. “Danielle, called Danny. Nice to meet you.”

“Wait.” Jo shot her a skeptical look. “Danny? Like Danny Lawrence? Like, Society president of 1960? Are you some kind of vampire or is this a really strange coincidence?”

Her mouth bone-dry, Danny said, “My mom. She had this thing about naming- wanted to start a ‘dynasty of Dannys’ or something. Really proto-feminist.” The weak smile at the end made the whole thing even more transparent, in her opinion. But the new girl seemed to buy it.

Jo stood, books back in order, and grimaced when she saw Danny’s blouse. “I can have that cleaned if you want,” she said, gesturing at the stained white fabric.

“It’s fine,” Danny replied. “I have plenty more.”

That was true enough. She’d learned over the last 20 years to never underestimate the power of judicious investments. Or the availability of cheap clothes in former Eastern Bloc countries.

“Are you sure?” Jo asked. “Because my girlfriend’s great at getting stains out of things. It’s like her magic ability or something.” As soon as the words had left her, the color drained from her face. She quickly began to stammer half-corrections.

“I mean my friend. Who’s a girl. Not anything, you know, funny. Not like a girlfriend or anything abnormal like-”

Danny cut her off with a genuine chuckle. “Rule number one of Silas: no-one cares. Between the cafeteria staff and whatever the Alchemy Club does in their lab, sexuality doesn’t even register. Trust me.”

“Oh, thank god.” But Jo raised an eyebrow. “Wait, how do you know? Aren’t you a first-year, too?”

“Um…” 

The sound of footsteps echoed through the walkway. Danny let out a barely-concealed sigh of relief. Sometimes the universe could be merciful.

“Jo. I was wondering where you’d gotten off to.”

The voice was familiar, too familiar, and any thoughts of mercy came to a screeching halt. Danny couldn’t make herself turn and face the girl now beside her. If she could stay a dark-haired blur in Danny’s peripheral vision, maybe she could still be someone else. Anyone else.

“Arcillma!” Jo’s voice was warm and eager. Danny fought the urge to tell her to run as fast and as far from here as possible. “This is Danny. We just met.”

There was no putting it off any longer. Danny turned, slowly, trying to prepare herself. When her eyes locked with the other girl’s, she knew it wasn’t enough time. It would never be enough.

The same brown eyes. The same dark curls, albeit feathered and layered to fit the current fashion. The same skin that should have been too pale but wasn’t, betraying nothing about this tiny girl’s true nature. Everything Danny had walked away from 20 years ago, looking up at her as if for the first time.

“Hi. Arcillma Karnstein.” She didn’t offer her hand, for which Danny was profoundly grateful.

“Danny Lawrence,” she said, fighting the urge to be stiff and formal. Danny, Jr. had no history with Arcillma. “So, are you a first-year?”

The rudeness she’d never been on the receiving end of was now a blessing. Arcillma rolled her eyes and turned back to Jo, completely ignoring her. She slipped an arm languidly around Jo’s shoulders, thus edging Danny out of their conversation.

“Come on. Let’s get ready for the mixer. You still want to go, right?” As she gently but firmly propelled Jo away, the younger girl looked at Danny over her shoulder.

“See you around, right?” Her smile was so bright it hurt, totally innocent and unhindered by dark secrets or old wounds. Danny turned away.

“Yeah. Sure.”  
\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A month. One measly month. She tried to hold out longer, really she did. But all she could manage, in the end, was a month.

It was a dark and stormy night, like every single horror movie cliché. Thunder rumbled above Silas like a disapproving god. In her bed shoved under an eave, on the top floor of the Society house, Danny tried to remember sleep. She reached deep again in search of “night is for rest” and came up empty-handed. Every fiber of her body sang, as if the lighting was in her veins instead of the sky. She was a predator and this was her time to hunt.

After 20 years, the feeling was still so alien it brought tears to her eyes. Burrowing deeper under the covers, she tried to remember human and normal and Danielle Lawrence who never asked for any of this. All she found was a stranger. A monster living in her skin. The scariest part, the part the storm awakened- she wasn’t sure she minded anymore.

Restless hours later, she kicked off the cheap outlet store quilt and left the room, shutting the door carefully behind her. She didn’t bother with shoes or street clothes or even a bathrobe, but walked calmly into the storm barefoot in her shorts and camisole. Night wasn’t interested in what she pretended to be, only what she was.

When she found herself at Arcillma’s door, she didn’t bother trying to feel surprised. She just knocked. The door opened, and there was no “Why are you here?”, no “Go away.” Just, “Hello.”

“Hi,” Danny said softly. Arcillma opened the door wider and backed away. Danny stepped inside and shut the door behind her.

The room was just as minimal as the last, and just as dark. Several red candles flickered in glass jars, and the floral curtains- that had to be a roommate’s design choice –had been drawn back to let the moonlight in. One side was decorated with posters, a lava lamp, and a lime-green flotaki rug. The other had little but a few books, the candles, and a lamp with a leather shade. That, she assumed, was Arcillma’s.

“You still travel light,” Danny said. It wasn’t a question.

Arcillma shrugged. “I don’t need much. Why haul a moving truck all over the world when things just break in a decade?”

Danny nodded. When she stayed quiet, Arcillma spoke again. “So. How’s immortality treating you?”

“I’ve been better,” Danny said wryly. Their eyes met.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“You’re not supposed to. Not right now, anyway.”

In two strides, Danny crossed the room to grip Arcillma’s shoulders tightly. Her knuckles were white, her nails digging into skin, but Arcillma didn’t flinch.

“I hate you,” Danny whispered.

“I know,” came the equally quiet reply.

She meant it, really. But the night and the storm and the way she felt so wrong in her own skin all came to a head, and something snapped. Without another word, she leaned forward and kissed her.

Other memories would come and dim and go, but that night Danny would never forget. Lit by lightning and candles, it would forever be a series of crystal-clear moments. Arcillma’s legs around her waist as she shoved the smaller girl against the wall, still kissing her. Black fabric ripping under preternaturally strong hands. Danny’s hips bucking involuntarily as Arcillma’s mouth found that one perfect spot. Sweat-slick skin touching, rubbing in a familiar rhythm. Everything building to a white-hot breaking point, not just once, but over and over.

And after, lying tangled in blankets next to Arcillma. Not speaking, not touching, certainly not sleeping. Just lying there in the dimly-lit room, listening to retreating thunder in the distance. As she thought about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, stretching on forever, Danny wondered if she’d found the only thing that would stay.


End file.
